Monthly archives: February, 2016

Thanks to a judgement in its favor filed two days ago (Feb. 24) by Judge Marcia G. Cooke of Miami’s Federal Court, the RIAA can now add mp3skull.com and mp3skull.us to its ever-expanding graveyard of music piracy websites and properties that includes Grooveshark, LimeWire, Sharebeast, RockDizFile and Aurous….

New rules governing U.K. collection societies — including the right of artists to be able to choose which society or licensing body manages their works — have been published by the British government and will dictate how organizations such as PRS for Music and PPL are allowed to operate….

Jay Z departs United States District Court after testifying in a copyright lawsuit on Oct. 14, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. Kevork S. Djansezian/Getty Images Samsung is in talks to acquire the Tidal streaming music service, the New York Post reports….

Michael Rapino, President/CEO, Live Nation Live Nation Entertainment delivered its fifth consecutive year of record revenue, profitability and free cash flow in 2015, but these overwhelmingly positive earnings figures were released on a “constant currency basis,” an approach which eliminates the volatility of exchange rate fluctuations, not an uncommon practice for international companies….

US Copyright Office Director Maria Pallante attends the U.S. Germanic Copyright Summit at the American Film Market at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel on Nov. 5, 2013 in Santa Monica, Calif. The Dept. of Justice is reportedly on the verge of imposing a drastic change to how performance rights organizations (PROs) are required to…

There is talk of a tech bubble. There are signs of a major slowdown in venture funding. If any of this is true, music tech didn’t get the memo until after the end of 2015. Last year, investments in music tech companies more than doubled to $2 billion….

Google’s Content ID and take down request systems were created to protect rights holders while allowing the maximum amount of content to appear on YouTube. Overall, they’ve worked surprisingly well. But sometimes the system is misused or even abused; and all too often that abuser is a major label….

n his Grammy night speech, Neil Portnow let loose on Spotify, decrying their failure to properly compensate artists for their music, but with the streaming service paying large portions of its revenue to artists and labels, and taking steps to make their business model more artist friendly, is Spotify helping more than hurting?…